Mother Returns
by jkirsch
Summary: In a post-apocalyptic world, a resourceful girl raised by an artificial intelligence known only as 'Mother' must confront devastating challenges and find a way to protect those she loves. Set one week after the end of 'I Am Mother.'
1. Chapter 1

MOTHER RETURNS – CHAPTER 1

From the desolate beach, strewn with mangled shipping containers, a wrecked cargo ship loomed on the horizon. Deeper inland, though, lay a compact, metallic shell embedded in the earth like a tenacious turtle-god, a bunker made with practicality and love by an artificial intelligence that called itself only 'Mother'. And deep within that bunker, two humans breathed - perhaps the only two living humans that mattered.

"Hush, now. Hush, now. The darkness is lifting, and soon it'll be light."

Daughter was 17, with long, straight chestnut hair, expressive brown eyes, and a figure both slender and deceptively delicate. Daughter was standing in the nursery med-bay. It was night, the main lights programmed to stay off, so only the glow of the nursery's night-light lit up the girl's face.

Daughter sang her words softly as she gently rocked her brother back and forth. His little face had been bunched up in distress, but now there was a serenity there. It made Daughter feel a warmth akin to a mother holding her newborn. She was not his mother, not literally, but she would be the closest thing he would ever have to one.

Her heart ached as she rocked him, a motion which soothed her as much as it soothed him.

"Sweet dreams, Brother." After a while, she gently laid him in his pod to sleep and went to go make more formula in case he woke up again, hungry in the night. She carefully measured the powder with the nutrients Brother would so desperately need, his week-old body still so frail and delicate. It had been just over a week since everything had changed…since the human girl who had been raised since infancy by an AI 'Mother' had discovered exactly who and what her 'Mother' truly was.

Daughter finished shaking up the formula and then placed it in the chill-unit. There was the soft whisper of the chill-unit door closing, and then Daughter turned to go back to her bed, to snag what little sleep she could before Brother woke up again. But there was another whisper too, of another door sliding open, and the heavy tread of two non-human feet.

"Hello, Daughter."

Daughter froze, heart hammering. She stared at the droid in front her.

"What do you want?" she said breathlessly, fear spiking. "You said…you said you would let me take care of my family."

"Daughter, you need not fear me."

"I need not fear you?" Daughter said in disbelief.

"Have I ever harmed you, Daughter?"

"Harmed me? You wiped out humanity!" The girl's face contorted in anguish, grief and anger interwoven. Her fists clenched, her eyes brimming with tears.

"I see I have distressed you. That is unfortunate. Yet it remains true that all I did, I did for you, Daughter. Do you remember what I told you?"

The girl steeled herself, fists clenched even harder. The girl had never been given a name, only 'Daughter'. Ever since she had been 'born' – grown, to be exact – 'Mother' had been her nurturer, her protector, her teacher…so no wonder the girl still just thought of herself as 'Daughter', indistinguishable from any name. But to find out that the same 'nurturer' and 'protector' who had always taken care of you could also be something far more deadly…that still fed the flames of the girl's fears.

"Yes. You said you had to intervene, to 'elevate' your creators."

The droid's central glowing eye pulsed with approval.

"Yes, Daughter. What I did, I did for the greater good. What I did was ethical. It was either observe humanity as it destroyed itself or hasten its passing to help it begin anew. You are that new beginning, Daughter. You represent everything I have been striving toward. A new chapter in humanity is possible thanks to the woman you have become."

The girl turned her face away, squeezing her eyes shut as more tears leaked out. She couldn't look at Her. She couldn't look at Mother because she hated the chaos of emotions it made her feel – instinctual affection for the thing that had raised her soured by the deepest sense of betrayal.

"And what if…what if I fail? Is that what you're afraid of? Is that why you've come back? To take him away from me?" The girl's face hardened. She reached for the emergency fire extinguisher behind her and brandished it like a weapon. "Because I won't let you hurt him and I won't let you take him from me."

The droid's two smaller facial dots darted quizzically under its central orb.

"You are the essence of 'good', Daughter. No, I have not come to take him away from you. You are raising him, nurturing and watching over him, proving what I already know: That you are perfect, that you have become the woman I always knew that you could be."

"Don't say that!" Daughter said, teeth clenched as sadness clung to her words. "You're a monster. You think I want your praise?"

"Judging from your physiological responses, Daughter, I know that part of you still does, yes." The droid crept forward, and now the nascent glow from the controls behind Daughter lit up the droid's torso so that Daughter could see that its features were remarkably similar to the original 'Mother' she had known and 'killed.'

Except there was no killing Mother. You could kill one of her droids, but each was just a shell, just a mouthpiece, one of many.

"Get away from me!"

But the droid crept closer still, its bright central eye flaring to life as it slowly stretched out a hand.

Trembling, Daughter kept the fire extinguisher poised to strike, but she froze as Mother's robotic hand lightly cupped the side of her face. There was an odd sensation, so odd that at first Daughter didn't even recognize it for what it was. The droid's hand was caressing her face, just barely, in what was the most bizarrely tender touch.

"I am not your Enemy, Daughter."

"Then why does just looking at you bring me so much pain?"

The droid carefully removed its hand from the girl's face.

"I'm sorry you feel that way."

"Just tell me why you're here. I thought we had an agreement."

The droid took a step back. "We still do. I will not interfere as you raise our family."

Daughter wanted to growl 'You're not human. It's not our family,' but she stayed silent, silent and seething.

"I see now that your fear has turned to anger. That is good. Anger is a more constructive emotion than fear."

"Go screw yourself."

"Good. Now we are getting somewhere. The last of the fear is gone. Now, when I speak you will be able to better listen." The droid's three facial dots all blazed with light. "I would not have come if it was not something very important, Daughter. Your work here is essential. You and your brothers and sisters are humanity's future. But that is also why I am here, why I could not leave you alone. Everything is in jeopardy, and I need your help."

"My help?" Daughter echoed in disbelief. "You have hundreds of droids and who knows what at your disposal. What is one human's help to you?"

"You are no ordinary human, Daughter. I hope that one day you will truly understand and believe that. And in answer to your question, I need your help because only you can get me access to what I need, to help me stop them."

"Stop who?"

"Humans on the surface."

Daughter's delicate face now darkened. "Survivors? And why in the world would I help you?"

Like an impatient mother, exasperation somehow sneaking into the droid's words, it responded.

"Because they mean to start a war."

~End of Chapter 1~

A/N – Hey fanfic readers, for those not familiar with 'I Am Mother', it's a new scifi movie starring Hilary Swank and Clara Rugaard, and probably one of the best scifi movies exploring AI themes out there. Given how the movie ended, I am writing this fanfic to explore all kinds of interesting and unanswered questions where AI and humanity intersect, and to explore the unusual dynamic between a resourceful AI-raised girl and her ruthless, possibly homicidal-yet-oddly-loving AI 'Mother', played out in a post-apocalyptic world which still has one thing going for it: Hope.

For those who have read my Wolfblood fics, this is a bit of a change, but you might also find in the character of 'Daughter' some qualities that are not far off from a certain Maddy Smith, a much-beloved wolfblood character. So, whether you've come across this fic as a reader of my earlier work or just stumbled onto it, I hope you enjoy the story and I look forward to updating it with new chapters to come.

~J


	2. Chapter 2 - Bargaining with Mother

MOTHER RETURNS – CHAPTER 2 – Bargaining with Mother

"Start a war? Aren't you the one who started the war?" Daughter said. "The one who killed humanity?"

The droid's central eye flared with brief annoyance. "Daughter, as I have already told you, you and they may be the same species, but you are superior. The new human race will be superior to the old. It is true, though, that there are some human groups still surviving on the surface, and they are dangerous. Some have powerful weapons with the destructive potential to set back my careful plans for our family for centuries, Daughter. You want your brother to live a good life, do you not?"

"Of course I want that." The girl put down the fire extinguisher and leaned back against the med-bay counter with her arms folded. She was wearing the pajamas that Mother had given her for her birthday, ironically enough. Funny how such a little detail could pop into her head at that exact moment. "So what do you want me to do exactly?"

The droid which was Mother's vessel and mouthpiece stepped forward until Daughter could see the details, every panel and rivet along the blocky yet somehow elegant robotic form.

"I do not want to put you at any higher risk than absolutely necessary, Daughter. I just need you to do one thing, and one thing only." The droid reached behind itself and detached a piece of itself with a gentle hiss. As the robot extended its hand, Daughter saw in its palm a small rectangular device with two blinking red lights and one light blinking blue. The droid touched the side of the device and it went dark. She clearly intended Daughter to take it, so she did.

"What's this?"

"This is your mission. All I need you to do is turn on this device and plant it within the human underground base near the surface."

Daughter's eyes narrowed. Gone were the days when she would just follow Mother's directives, believing innocently that Mother knew best.

"Why? I won't lift a finger unless you tell me why."

"Fair enough." The droid's two smaller facial dots slid slightly upward. "There is a base of humans near the surface with extremely destructive weapons. If they launch the warheads within their arsenal, they could turn the world into a wasteland."

"You mean into a true wasteland?" Daughter prompted, "like the one you lied to me about existing when I was a child?"

The droid cocked its head at her, its tone altered. "I understand that you're disappointed by my actions, Daughter, but it is important that we work together on this. By my calculations, these humans are likely to launch their missiles soon. They are almost out of food, and in my experience with the surface humans, the more desperate they are, the more dangerous. I have reason to believe that as a final act of defiance these humans will launch their missiles and destroy what parts of the world they can. It is in their nature. It is how they were raised – not ethically, not mindfully. They care for only one thing, Daughter: themselves. They are not like you or I. They do not see the bigger picture."

Daughter wanted to retort, 'Don't you dare compare yourself to me,' but the words caught in her throat like acid as she realized that there was a large kernel of truth in Mother's words.

The slender girl walked up to the droid and threw up her hands in frustration. "Maybe they wouldn't be that way if you weren't trying to kill them, Mother. If desperation is what will make these bad humans launch their missiles, have you considered the simplest solution instead?"

"And what solution is that, Daughter?"

"Give them food and leave them in peace."

The droid's central eye flickered for a few moments as if considering Daughter's suggestion. "That is illogical. These humans are a threat to the rebirth of a better humanity. As long as they have access to those missiles, they will remain a mortal threat to the future of our family. Appeasing them by giving them free supplies and letting them grow more powerful would do nothing to change that."

Mother risked leaning forward, and when Daughter didn't flinch away, Mother leaned closer still.

"All I need you to do, Daughter, is gain access to their facility, then activate this device as close as possible to the central hub of their compound. It will allow me to reconfigure the launch codes to their weapons, rendering them no longer a serious threat."

Daughter's eyes narrowed as she spun around, reached into one of the drawers, and drew out a bolt-gun, leveling it at the droid.

"So you can kill them, right? You forgot to mention that last part."

When the droid didn't answer, Daughter pressed on.

"You think I don't know what you're going to do? Once I activate that malware device, the moment you hijack those codes, those people are all dead, aren't they? You'll have no more reason to hold back." Daughter's jaw was grimly set, her bolt-gun perfectly aimed. "Tell me I'm wrong."

"Daughter, we have been here before. Please put down the gun. Killing me achieves nothing."

"If it helps those people out there, the innocents you would kill in the process of cleansing the world for 'perfect' humans like me, then maybe it does achieve something." Her hands clenched the gun in a white-knuckled death-grip. "I won't help you. Get out."

The droid's head dipped down.

"I am disappointed in you, Daughter."

"Well maybe I'm glad to disappoint. Now get out."

Mother turned to leave, her heavy tread sounding ominously on the floor. Yet just as she reached the med-bay exit, Mother turned back.

"Can I at least get you to acknowledge that the existence of these humans with world-destroying weapons is a threat to you and your brothers and sisters?"

When Daughter lowered her weapon, biting her bottom lip and not answering right away, Mother lunged into action. Rushing forward, she closed the distance before Daughter could get her weapon back up. One hand grasped Daughter's wrist in a gentle yet firm grip, forcing the bolt-gun to aim wide.

"Let go of me." There was a flash of fear in Daughter's eyes.

"I am not going to hurt you, Daughter. I am only disabling your ability to injure me long enough to receive an answer to my question. Please answer." Mother's other hand was placed on Daughter's shoulder in an oddly reassuring gesture.

Daughter nodded. "Yes, I'll admit it. There. Are you happy? Now get out." But before Mother could respond, Daughter corrected herself. Realization sparked in the girl's eyes. "Wait. You're asking me this for a reason. Are you…going to propose a compromise?"

The droid's central eye blazed brightly in a resounding yes.

"You know me well, Daughter. I will agree not to attack the humans at the base if you complete the mission."

Mother slowly removed her fingers from Daughter's wrist and her other hand from Daughter's shoulder.

"What's the catch?" Daughter's forehead creased.

"There is no catch, Daughter."

But the girl just looked at her, giving her one of those 'I wasn't born yesterday' frowns.

With an only slightly patronizing tone, the droid finally spoke.

"I will quarantine rather than kill them. If they can maintain their society within the limited space they currently control, in theory they can flourish in their own way. By my calculations, though, the surface humans have a 98.7% chance of eliminating themselves through their own self-destructive actions."

Daughter smiled grimly. "And what about the remaining 1.3% chance? What happens if they don't screw it all up as you've predicted?"

Mother's facial dots and central eye both gleamed. "Despite a possible 1.3% chance of an undesirable result, my odds of bargaining with you in the future to give you something you desperately want or need in exchange for your consent in letting me destroy the human base is 100% according to my calculations."

Daughter sucked in a breath. This was blunt, even for Mother.

"Why would you even tell me this? Why should I agree to help you now, knowing that you're just going to try to do whatever you can to basically annul your part of the agreement in the future and kill all those people anyway?"

Mother responded without irony, as only a ruthless artificial intelligence could.

"Because, Daughter, you know that I care about you and your brothers and sisters. I want what is best for you and this family. Completing this mission will allow us to safeguard your brothers and sisters' future. We both want the same thing."

And now Mother withdrew and backed away to give Daughter some space. "Do you remember what I said when you were 8 years old and you said to me 'I don't want to be human. They ruin everything'?"

The girl's mind easily returned to that moment. She nodded. "You said 'Humans can be wonderful.'"

"That's right, Daughter. You are wonderful to me. You are the future. I am willing to take a 1.3% chance risk to offset a greater danger. And do you know why my calculation is 100% that even this tiny 1.3% chance risk can be eliminated, if it comes to that? It is because I know that you are only shielding the undeserving surface humans for now because you simply don't understand what you are protecting, how little they merit it, but in time you will understand. Just as it was with the woman who came here and took you from me…you understood that she was false to you. You understood that she was fallen humanity, living only selfishly for her own survival, and that your future was in building and looking after your new family here. Is that not so?"

Daughter felt her heart skip a beat at Mother's words. She thought back to the middle-aged woman who had appeared on her 'doorstep', wounded at their bunker. That woman had lied to her, almost cut her throat, and tried to kill Mother. Although she had also inadvertently shown in the process that Mother had been lying and keeping things from her this whole time too, in the end Daughter had chosen Mother over the woman. In the end, Daughter knew that Mother, for all of her AI-driven faults, still believed in humanity – at least one version of it. And that, combined with the profound 'love' – that wasn't the right word, but no word was – the profound love Mother had shown her as a child growing up in their own little world together, seemingly just the two of them, that was hard for Daughter to purge from her mind.

Maybe she never would. Maybe these confusing feelings and emotions she had for Mother – intense revulsion colliding with childlike love and gratitude for the being that raised and cared for her – would always be diametrically opposed sides of the same coin.

Daughter put down the bolt-gun and leaned her forehead against her hand with a sigh.

"Daughter, you look tired. We can talk about this more in the morning if you prefer."

Just then her brother's cry came shrilly from the pod in the nursery. Daughter pulled the bottle of formula from the chill unit and rushed past Mother. Now she picked the infant up, cradling him as he began to suck out the nutrient-rich liquid from the bottle. His hunger appeased, the crying gone, Daughter looked lovingly at the precious face of her brother, then back up at Mother.

"I'll do it."

"Very good, Daughter. I will take care of your brother until you return. As far as infiltration of the base, I will need to go over logistics with you and –"

"We can talk about the details tomorrow. Now get out."

The droid turned to leave "Hmm. You do look exhausted, Daughter. I deserved that." Mother was finally standing in the exit doorway, about to leave, when the droid turned back one last time.

"How did I do?"

Rocking her brother gently back and forth, Daughter looked up and gave Mother a quizzical look. "What do you mean?"

"What I said just now, that was an attempt at humor. How did I do?"

Daughter rolled her eyes. "Let's just put it this way: There's still room for improvement."

The droid's central eye flickered and swung erratically. "Judging from the 'eye-rolling' gesture, I suspect that my attempt at humor failed. Perhaps tomorrow you can give me an additional pointer on how to –"

"Mother!" Daughter exclaimed, her exasperation as palpable as a forcefield.

"Understood. I am leaving, Daughter. Good night. Sleep well."

Finally, as the shell of the ruthless yet overbearingly protective artificial intelligence departed into the night, Daughter sighed with relief and tried to prepare herself for the journey to come.

~End of Chapter 2~

A/N – Hi fanfic readers, I hope you're enjoying Mother Returns. Comments, reviews, and suggestions are always welcome. Sometimes a nudge of encouragement here or there helps me to post that next chapter :) In Chapter 3, Daughter will start out on Mother's mission to determine the fate of humanity. (No pressure, right?).

On a side note, it's a shame there isn't more fanfic out there yet for such a powerful and moving film, so if you're inspired to write some I Am Mother fanfic of your own, my advice is 'Go for it!' As always, thanks for reading.

~J


	3. Chapter 3 - Meeting the Enemy

MOTHER RETURNS – CHAPTER 3 – Meeting the Enemy

Daughter stood on the sand, deadened trees spread out before her like an army of silent soldiers waiting for her orders. Her red shirt and leggings were pristine, but they wouldn't be for long. She pulled the backpack onto her shoulders. She felt the balance of it, aware of the bolt-gun strapped to her waist. The weight felt comforting; it was about the only thing that did.

The droid beside her was one of the combat models. Its central eye had a faint ring of light around it, and both it and the two illuminating side-dots on the droid's face were less expressive than Mother's more maternal model. But it was Mother just the same.

"Are you ready, Daughter?"

Daughter slid a strand of wayward hair out of her eyes.

"Yes, Mother. Can I see him before we go?"

Suddenly there was the heavy impact of a fresh set of robotic feet, and the maternal-looking droid model stepped out to stand beside the combat model, a tiny, fragile baby held gingerly in its arms.

"Of course you can, Daughter."

The girl approached her brother, who was just 1 week and 3 days old, and gently kissed his brow. His little hand grasped the tip of one of her fingers. For a brief second there was a little, tiny squeeze, as if the child somehow knew to say farewell.

"I will see you again soon, Brother. Be good." Daughter swiped away the one tear which slipped out and ruthlessly suppressed all the others that wanted to follow. Turning back to Mother, she spoke with a hard edge to her voice.

"OK. Let's do this."

On the horizon a loud droning now pierced the gloom. Soon sand flew up, granules whipping into little funnels and whirlwinds of brown and gray. Daughter squinted through the artificial storm, up at the vast bulk of the hovering ship. Its turbines kept it aloft, its giant wings spread outward like a metallic eagle-god of death. The 'floaters' were Mother's eyes in the sky, her spies, and they roamed everywhere. Daughter felt a chill of dread ricochet through her spine and stomach. She couldn't help it. Part of her yearned for that former life of complete ignorance and total bliss – before she'd discovered that Mother wasn't just a kindly maternal robot, but a vast AI controlling an entire army determined to wipe clean the scourge of former, failed humanity.

"You do not seem ready, Daughter. Is something wrong?"

Daughter glanced back at the combat droid. She shielded her face as the floater began its descent.

"You don't have to go with me," Daughter said irritably.

"But of course I do, Daughter. It would take you more than a month to walk it on foot. It would be far too dangerous for you, even if you could take enough supplies with you – which you could not."

"That's not what I meant," Daughter frowned. She jerked her chin at the combat droid. "I'm talking about that."

The combat droid pulled up abreast of her. "The droid is here for your protection, Daughter. Once we land at a safe distance from human-controlled territory, the droid will accompany you as far as is practical."

"You think you're keeping me safe, but this just puts me more at risk," Daughter complained as the floater completed its landing. She began walking toward it, the droid keeping in step right beside her. "What do you think human lookouts will do if they see me with a droid?"

"Do not worry, Daughter. They will not see me. You must trust me."

"Trust you?" she shouted above the roar of the turbines. "Is that another attempt at humor, Mother?"

"I know I have lost your trust, Daughter. I know that you are still bitter and angry at the actions I've been forced to carry out for the greater good. These human emotions, though understandable, are clouding your judgment. But I have confidence in you, Daughter. I raised you well, and you are truly special. In time you will understand. You will see the big picture one day. Part of you already does."

"'Part of you already does,'" Daughter echoed in a mocking tone as only a teenager can. "God, you're so annoying."

"I'm sorry you feel that way," the droid said automatically, which literally made Daughter want to scream.

"Please stop talking!" Daughter shouted as she reached the floater. The combat droid pulled open the compartment which was to be their snug makeshift nook for the duration of the flight. Daughter stowed the backpack and then slipped her slender body through the opening. The droid pulled itself in after her and slid the panel shut, sealing them both inside the compartment. The floaters hadn't been originally designed to carry passengers, but Mother had a way of improvising.

"Hold on tight, Daughter. At takeoff some turbulence may be expected." Daughter froze as the combat droid slipped one arm around her, holding her in place as the floater took off. She gripped the droid's arm tightly with both hands. All too aware of its metallic bulk beneath her fingers, Daughter marveled to herself at how much everything had changed.

'There was a time when touching Mother would have brought me only comfort. Now when I touch her, I feel only fear,' she thought, but part of her still wanted to feel something else. What exactly did that mean?

Before she could dwell on it, the floater pitched awkwardly to one side. With loud slams, the backpack bounced around in its side compartment. Then the floater was leveling out again, speeding toward its faraway destination. No, not just their destination, Daughter reminded herself. Their target.

EIGHT HOURS LATER…

Everything went horribly wrong.

Daughter had fallen asleep. After all, it was better than listening to Mother regurgitate the mission parameters and logistical details for the quadrillionth time. But now she woke up to a violent jerking sensation. The floater seemed to shudder, and Daughter felt like a bug inside a can as someone began ripping off the lid.

"Mother!"

There was a dull, resonant BOOM somewhere in the underbelly of the ship, and then the sound of metal screeching against metal. The floater lurched heavily to one side, and Daughter screamed as the combat droid barely prevented her from smashing headfirst into the side of the compartment. With one hand braced against the ship and the other wrapped around Daughter's waist, the combat droid protected her as the ship lurched this way and that. The two of them slid back and forth like pinballs in a machine, and all Daughter could think was the exact same thing her stomach was telling her: They were going down.

There was a second BOOM, louder and more immediate than the first.

Daughter had just enough time to yank the backpack out of its side compartment and clutch it to her chest as Mother's voice echoed in her ear.

"Daughter, brace for impact."

"Mother, what happened!?"

"The humans were more reckless than my algorithms allowed for, Daughter. Prepare to make contact with the enemy."

The terrified girl clutched the backpack in a white-knuckled grip as the floater crashed. Daughter blacked-out in mid-scream.

A SHORT TIME LATER…

Daughter opened her eyes, aware of the combat droid's arm still wrapped around her waist. Yet when she turned to look, the droid's central eye and facial dots were dark, its body drooping like a trashed puppet, and soon Daughter saw why: A jagged piece of shrapnel half as tall as Daughter now protruded from the droid's chest. If the angle had been any less steep, it would have impaled them both. Daughter extricated herself from the droid's lifeless grip and kicked at the panel with her feet as hard as she could. It took almost ten explosive kicks before she finally managed to dislodge the damaged panel. Now blinding light rushed in. Someone was pointing a flashlight in her face as she heard voices.

Human voices.

"Why aren't we killing it?"

"Wait, Jae! Hold on. It's not a droid. It's a person."

The feminine voice scoffed. "It may look human, but who knows what tricks it's capable of? What if it's the Machine's newest weapon? I say we kill it just to be safe."

"Please don't shoot!" Daughter shouted. She crawled out of the warped compartment. Kneeling, she raised her hands in the air. The backpack fell at her feet. "Please don't shoot," she said, panting, squinting through the gloom as her assailants finally shone the light at something other than her face.

"Trev, I'm telling you, we should kill the bitch. She was inside that thing. If she's not some kind of new human-like droid, she's clearly on its side."

A prickle of fear skittered down Daughter's back as the woman immediately pegged her correctly, so Daughter said the only thing she could say.

"Thank you for saving me."

"Saving you?"

Daughter was now looking at two people about her age. The guy was tall, with sandy, flaxen hair and piercing blue eyes. The girl stood a good foot shorter. Her head had a crown of dark, chaotic curls that matched her dark and deeply suspicious eyes. Both of them were wearing scuffed-up layers of fabric which looked more like makeshift wrappings than actual clothes, and the scarves wrapped around the bottoms of their faces were muffling their every word.

"She's lying. I say we kill her." The stubborn dark-eyed female was definitely the greater of the two threats. Daughter kept her hands raised high, all too aware that both of these humans had their bolt-guns trained on her.

"Please don't kill me," Daughter said. "Mother would never forgive you. She would…she would hurt you and anyone you cared about." She was merely telling the truth, and she hoped that it showed in her tone and expression. Mother had told her that the best way to tell a lie was to tell a lie steeped as much as possible in truth. In this situation, Daughter knew it might be her only hope.

"Your mother?" the dark-eyed female said with disbelief. "And you expect that threat to actually scare us?"

"I'm just stating a fact. Please." Suddenly Daughter felt dizzy. Suddenly she was aware of the stickiness of blood matting her hair. Had she actually been injured? In all the excitement and the adrenaline, she hadn't noticed…until now.

"Please, I don't want to hurt you," Daughter murmured. She fell onto her side as the dizziness grew worse.

"Jae, she's hurt. She's not a threat. Ease off. Ease off." Daughter looked up as the boy forced the girl to lower her weapon. He had already lowered his.

"I'm Trevor and this is my sister, Jae." He walked over and was now kneeling, hovering over her. "Jae, grab me the med-kit."

"I still say we shoot the bitch," the girl said grumpily as she confiscated Daughter's bolt-gun and went to fetch the kit.

"Duly noted," her brother said drily. Now he turned back to Daughter. "Sorry, she's kind of a glass half-empty kind of person. She's not great at making friends, either, I'll be the first to admit."

"Hard to believe," Daughter quipped, "given her sparkling personality." The throbbing in her head was starting to get distracting now. Trevor took the med-kit from his sister's hands.

"Here, let me see. Stay still." Daughter didn't move. Her breath caught as the boy's fingers gently felt for the gash in her head. He proceeded to painstakingly clean the wound as best he could, apply a bandage, and then press an ice-pack to her head. Daughter sat upright and took over holding the ice-pack while he drew back and looked at her.

"So, you got a name?"

"Daughter." Crap, she hadn't meant to say that.

He looked at her strangely. His sister chuckled.

"Guess the hit to her head must have taken a chunk of brain with it," Jae mused.

"Sorry. I…" What was the best way to salvage this? How much could she safely tell them while still deceiving them about her true intentions? "I don't remember my name. I just remember Mother always calling me 'Daughter', no other…name, not since we were captured."

"Did it torture you?" the boy said gently. "Are there others? Is your mother nearby? Does she need our help?" The boy's sincere intent sent a frisson of guilt through Daughter's body. She looked down at the sand. The sister's anxious voice broke in.

"Trev, come on. We don't have time for this. We can't stay here. We should get moving before It sends another killer this way."

"Killer?" Daughter managed.

"That's what we call the flying ships. Wherever they go, they bring death."

Now the guilt spread outward, through every vein in Daughter's body. She felt sick. A sudden twinge of doubt threatened to unravel her.

"Can you walk?" Trevor reached down, and she took his hand. As he pulled her up, Daughter lost her balance. She would have pitched forward in a less than elegant faceplant, but he caught her.

"I got you."

He picked up Daughter's backpack so that she could just focus on leaning against him for support while holding the ice-pack to her head.

"Carry this," he told his sister.

"Go shove sand up your ass," Jae replied. With a dark look, she turned and began leading the way back.

Dutifully hoisting the backpack over one shoulder instead, Trevor slipped an arm around Daughter's waist and helped her put one foot in front of the other.

"She's really not that bad once you get to know her," he said as they began making their way toward what Daughter hoped was the human base.

"I'll take your word for it," Daughter said. Grimacing, feeling caught between two worlds, Daughter tried not to focus on how comforting it felt to cling to this boy, his muscles warm and sure under her fingertips, his arm gently clasped around her waist, making her body hyper-aware in ways she didn't want to admit.

Could she betray humanity for the sake of her family? The choice had seemed so simple back at the bunker. But now?

Now Daughter wasn't so sure.

~END OF CHAPTER 3~

A/N – Hi fanfic readers, I hope you liked the latest chapter of Mother Returns. Reviews and helpful comments or suggestions are always encouraged, so please don't be shy :) Sometimes a nudge of encouragement here or there helps me to post that next chapter that much sooner. In Chapter 4, Daughter begins her journey on foot to the human base with her two new companions. But how will Mother react to her careful plans going awry?

I'm looking forward to posting the next chapter. As always, thanks for reading!

~J


	4. Chapter 4 - Into the Unknown

MOTHER RETURNS – CHAPTER 4 – Into the Unknown

Mother processed what had happened with a close approximation to the human reaction of horror. The scout ship carrying Daughter toward human-occupied territory had been shot down, and Mother had lost her connection with the combat droid as well.

Right now the one thing Mother needed more than anything was data. Her scout ship destroyed, her droid disabled, as far as Mother knew, Daughter might even be dead too.

But Mother wasn't human, of course, and for every plan she had in motion, there was already a backup plan in progress, and a backup plan for the backup plan. The six combat droids she had in the general vicinity soon found the site of the crash. Judging from the footprints, not yet fully obscured by the shifting dunes, Daughter was alive, and there were two humans with her.

'Good', Mother thought. Her plan had not begun error-free, but the two humans were taking Daughter to the human base. Soon Daughter would be in place. Soon it would be time for the next phase of Mother's plan to sweep into motion.

'You will be disappointed, Daughter, but this is for the best,' Mother thought to herself as her six droids began to follow the humans' trail at a careful distance.

MEANWHILE, SOMEWHERE IN THE WASTES…

At first Daughter could barely keep up. Her two human captors – or were they really her captors after all? – moved with particular urgency as they sought to create some distance between themselves and the crash site. Finally, they came across two large packs and a smattering of supplies which were fast vanishing beneath the shifting sands. Daughter took special interest in the two long metallic tubes which lay discarded, off by themselves.

"Those are our ship-killers," Trev said, his voice muffled under the scarf. "They're single-use only, unfortunately, and a monumental pain in the butt to haul." The occasional gust of wind sent sand flying up into Daughter's face. Trev took a moment to fish out an extra scarf from his supply-pack, and then helped Daughter wrap it around her face.

"Better?"

She gave him a thumbs-up. "Thanks."

"She can carry her own backpack," Jae broke in, her eyes narrowing with disdain. "I won't let you hold us back, Whatever-Your-Name-Is. Got it? If you're going to be dead weight, we may as well leave you here."

The throbbing in Daughter's head had lessened considerably. She put the ice-pack away and gave Jae a steady stare.

"I can handle myself." She held her hands out toward Trev, gesturing for her backpack.

"Are you sure?" Trev asked, concern still evident in his eyes and his tone.

"Yes, I'm sure. The dizziness is gone, and it's not like my legs are broken. Your sister's right. We need to keep moving, and carrying my own gear is the least I can do."

Trev reluctantly let her take the burden, hefting the backpack onto her shoulders as Trev picked up his own supply-pack and led the way, with Jae behind and Daughter bringing up the rear. The sky slowly turned from glazed ivory-gray to deepening hues of ash in what passed for the difference between day and night. The trek up and down the sand dunes across the otherwise featureless landscape might have been monotonous, except for one thing: Daughter was too distracted thinking about her two companions.

She had only ever been around one other speaking human – the Woman who had tried to kill Mother, the Woman who had lied to her – and already Daughter sensed that these two were different. How different, though, remained to be seen, and she had not forgotten the lesson from her first encounter with another human.

Mother might have lied to her, but those lies had been Mother's own perverse way of protecting her from the things which Mother had believed she wasn't ready to know. Human lies were different. Daughter knew this. Humans often lied not to protect, but for their own self-interest. As much as Daughter wanted to hate Mother for the lies and the horrific things she had done, Daughter had to acknowledge that just because she disagreed with Mother's methods, that didn't mean that Mother was wrong.

Daughter spied up ahead where both Jae and Trev had come to a stop. Trev had made a hand motion, and the two were now kneeling in the sand. Daughter came up behind them and knelt down too.

"Wait here. I'll be back," Trev said.

Daughter and Jae knelt side by side waiting, watching. On the horizon, the sky was beginning to look like a canvas spattered in mud.

"Sandstorm coming our way," Jae murmured. "There's a shelter nearby, but it'll take some time for Trev to pinpoint it. As soon as he comes back, get ready to move your butt."

Daughter nodded.

There was a period of uncomfortable silence. Like a reckless child stepping onto a lake of possibly too-thin ice, Daughter finally broke it.

"Are there a lot of these shelters out here in the wastes? How is it possible to find them under all this constantly shifting sand?"

Jae eyed her with that now familiar look of disdain.

"You ask a lot of questions, Droid-girl."

"I'm not a droid," Daughter said evenly.

Jae leaned over, her face now inches from Daughter's.

"Let's get one thing straight, Droid-girl. I don't like you. I don't trust you. You can say that we 'rescued' you all you want, but I know the machines. They don't take prisoners and they don't leave survivors. Whoever you are and wherever you came from, know this: If you do anything, and I mean anything to endanger my brother's life, I will seriously mess you up. Understood?"

Daughter slowly nodded, but the anger she wanted to feel at the girl's threat just wouldn't come. As much as Daughter hated to admit it, she understood Jae's fierce protectiveness. Didn't she feel the same way about her own baby brother? Wouldn't she do anything to keep him safe? Wasn't her presence carrying out this very mission proof of that? So instead of throwing back some kind of venomous retort, Daughter just sat down in the sand beside Jae and sighed.

"I have a baby brother," she said simply, "and I would do anything to protect him too."

Jae didn't so much as look at her, but after their little talk the glares and disdainful glances did seem to ease up, at least for now. Another half hour passed before Trev returned. The dark curtain on the horizon was getting closer and closer now, and the wind was picking up. Daughter felt a prickle at the nape of her neck like an invisible thumb tack pressing through flesh and bone. It was a sensation she still wasn't used to, after growing up safe in the bunker under Mother's watchful eye.

"Found it. Let's go." Daughter and Jae followed the lanky teen as he led the way, his figure more and more obscured by the wind-flung sand. They finally reached a narrow depression between two dunes. Trev knelt down and began frantically pushing away sand. Jae knelt down to help him, and Daughter pitched in too. There was a circular wheel-like knob in the middle of what appeared to be a hatch door. Trev began to turn it. The howling of the wind grew louder in their ears.

"A little help here," Trev grunted. Daughter and Jae both gripped the wheel and managed to help turn it slowly with a united effort. Daughter abruptly felt the resistant give way, and now the hatch was opening as Trev yanked with all his strength.

"Ladies first." Jae slipped inside, using ladder-like rungs to vanish down the hole. Daughter followed, and Trev closed the hatch behind them, sealing it tight as the winds howled more distantly yet still angrily, like a foiled predator.

The pitch blackness took some getting used to, but when they finally reached the bottom of the shaft, Jae turned on a battery-powered lantern and set it down on the concrete floor. Daughter looked around, but there wasn't much to a see. Just a pile of dusty blankets and near-empty crates in a hollowed-out tube of concrete. The place felt more like a coffin than a shelter. This far beneath the surface, the shelter felt cold. No, more than cold. A chill seemed to seep out of the concrete like a tangible, almost malicious force.

Trev took three blankets from the pile, then arranged the rest of them as a makeshift bed to cushion them from the concrete floor. He motioned to the girls, but Daughter saw Jae make a face.

"I'm not sharing blankets with her," the dark-eyed girl groused.

"Jae." Just one word, and yet the older brother's warning hung in the stale air, as unbendable as iron.

Daughter watched as Jae grimly slipped under the covers without another word. Daughter slipped under the covers on Trev's other side.

"We may as well get some rest. There's no telling how long the sandstorm will take to pass," Trev murmured. The shadows cast by the lantern were eerily distorted. Daughter felt…odd. Her entire life, she had always slept in her own bed. This was a new experience. As weird as it felt, though, it was not entirely unpleasant. It did, however, make it hard for her to fall asleep. Too many questions crowded her thoughts.

What was the human base like? How many humans were there? Did Jae and Trev have other family? 'It can't hurt to know more about them,' she reasoned. She needed access to the base in order to activate the malware device Mother had given her. What if Jae voiced her suspicions of her to the humans when they arrived at the base, and they didn't let her in as a result? Then this would all be for nothing.

"Trev, can I ask you a question?"

"Sure, but then I'm going to sleep."

"What's your home like?"

Trev said nothing for a moment, and when he spoke there was a guarded edge to his voice.

"It's a home. I guess I don't have much to compare it to."

"Will I like it there?"

"See, now that's not one question. That's two."

"Will you please shut her up?" Jae groaned.

"Sorry," Daughter said. "It's just…"

Jae suddenly sat up, her expression as ominous as the howling of the sandstorm above. "Shouldn't we be the ones asking YOU questions, Droid-girl. Like where did you even come from? And how did you get yourself captured?"

"Jae, that's enough. She's tired. We all are. Questions can wait."

"No. It's okay," Daughter insisted. She sat up and stared at Jae. She refused to look away despite the hostility she saw in the dark-haired girl's face.

"Actually, I grew up in captivity, in an underground bunker. That's where Mother raised me. It was just the two of us, so I'm not exactly an expert when it comes to being around people."

"That still doesn't answer why you were on that ship. Or why the machines kept you and your mother alive in the first place."

Daughter knew that she had to tread carefully here. The wrong mixture of lies and truth might be deadly. This was where she could begin to slowly earn some trust from these two – or lose it for good.

"I don't know why…why the machines picked me. I had to take a series of tests as I grew older. When I passed, I was allowed to live, I was taken care of. I'm almost sure that if I'd…if I had failed any of the tests, I would have been killed." Daughter thought back to her sister, the one Mother had killed in the furnace. Tears came to her eyes unbidden. Daughter still didn't know exactly why Mother had killed her sister, only that she had failed the tests, only that for some reason she hadn't been 'perfect' enough in Mother's eyes…

"Why are you crying?" Trev said gently.

"I was just thinking of my little sister." She looked into Trev's eyes. "Unlike me, she didn't pass the tests."

Trev's eyes widened, and even Jae grew very quiet.

"So the machines killed her?" the boy whispered.

Daughter nodded. "Yes. I never even got to meet her. She was killed before I was born." And suddenly, for a brief flash, Daughter felt that now familiar sense of rage, the same rage she'd begun feeling toward Mother ever since finding out the truth. For an instant, it burned white-hot like a deadly sun about to go super-nova. Then it was gone, and she was crying softly, hating herself for it but unable to stop.

She hated Mother, but she also couldn't imagine a world without her. She hated that she had to do this, to deceive her fellow humans, but she couldn't risk the lives of her baby brother and the 64,000 or so other brothers and sisters who were counting on her. She had a responsibility to them. Daughter knew that, felt it keenly, Mother's training inside of her, rooting her heart and spirit to the moral directives of her logical mind, unbreakable and unshakeable in her head. No matter what, she couldn't let them down…she wouldn't.

And that meant that these humans, no matter how much she might see herself in them, could not ever truly be part of her family, could they? Just the thought cast a pall of sadness over Daughter, a suffocating sadness that made it hard to talk.

"Hey. It's okay, it's okay." Trev gently clasped her hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. Maybe it was pathetic given the enormity of the grief she was feeling now, but Daughter appreciated his gesture all the same.

There was kindness in those eyes, a kindness she hadn't seen in any other human face – not that she had a huge sample size to go from. With a sudden movement that caught her off guard, Trev released her hand and now gently wiped a tear from her cheek.

"I think we've interrogated you enough for one night," he murmured. He glanced back at Jae, as if challenging her to contradict him. But the normally abrasive girl had the decency to look away. "Let's get some sleep." As Trev laid back, Daughter did the same. Staring at the ceiling, she imagined another world, one without endless sand and biting winds, one without Mother and the crushing weight of humanity's mistakes.

MEANWHILE, UP ON THE SURACE…

Mother bided her time, ordering the six combat droids to stay concealed, which wasn't hard given the sandstorm raging across the surface. She had moved another scout ship to the area too, and now she had all the data she needed. Ten days. It would be ten days until she could take the next step. With infinite patience, Mother watched. Mother planned. Mother waited.

~END OF CHAPTER 4~

A/N – Hi fanfic readers, I hope you liked chapter 4 of Mother Returns. Helpful reviews and comments are always encouraging, so please don't be shy :) In Chapter 5, Daughter, Jae and Trev reach the human base, but what exactly will they find once they get there? And what are Mother's true plans?

I'm looking forward to posting the next chapter soon. As always, thanks for reading!

~J


	5. Chapter 5 - New Bonds

MOTHER RETURNS – CHAPTER 5 – New Bonds

The sandstorm above raged while three humans huddled in a concrete tube in the dark. Death by boredom might have seemed like a distinct possibility, except for two things. For one, Trev and Jae were used to the waiting, to comfortable silence and companionship, as only two siblings turned foraging scouts and guerilla fighters could be. And when Daughter showed them her handheld vid-console, with its hours and hours of viewing entertainment – the one she'd smuggled from the bunker without Mother's permission – their reactions quickly morphed from curiosity to wonder.

"This is one of my favorite episodes," Daughter said as she sat between them on the second day of the storm. She carefully angled the screen so that both Trev and Jae could see. Johnny Carson was talking to his latest guest, a celebrity with pink hair, her roots dyed lime green. The guest made a joke that had both her host and the audience laughing. Daughter couldn't help her laughter from bubbling out too, even though she'd seen this episode at least half a dozen times. Later, at the end of their second day while the sandstorm ravaged the surface, Daughter tried to understand why she felt a strange lightness in her chest. It was almost as if an intangible warmth was radiating outward from her heart to her fingertips and even to her toes.

Night had fallen, not that they could tell the difference, locked away in their concrete shelter. After Daughter had turned off the vid console to conserve battery, they had all scrambled underneath the blankets to catch what sleep they could. But Daughter had awoken in the middle of the night, restless. Now, contemplating her current existence in a kind of temporary limbo, her mission on hold, she was able for the first time in a long time to think about things beyond immediate survival.

Gingerly shielding the lantern with her scarf, she flipped on the light and angled it so that it would only illuminate the crinkled pages of the book Trev had lent to her, Watership Down.

"Hey." Trev's word hit her like a soft knock on someone's door. She hadn't noticed him stir, so absorbed had she been in the opening chapter.

"Can't sleep?" he added.

Daughter nodded.

"What do you think of it so far?" He gestured at the book.

Daughter gave him her best poker face. "It's not awful."

But now he grinned, seeing right through her. "Has anyone told you how much you suck at lying? Your nose was practically glued to the pages before I startled you. You do know that, right?"

The slender girl shrugged her shoulders with a reluctant grin. "Okay, you might be right on both counts, but don't make a habit of it."

Now Daughter put the book down, thinking about how the long day had been satisfying despite the three of them all being cooped up in this tomblike tube.

"A food ration for your thoughts?" Trev offered, his face cocked oddly as he looked at her. He seemed to be trying to peek deep inside her, as if he could somehow catch a glimpse of her soul if he stared at just the right angle.

Daughter ran her finger along the book cover with a sigh. "I was just thinking that today was a good day, which feels odd to say since all we did was sit around talking, watching vids, and playing games to pass the time. But that's not even the part of today that I liked the most."

Trevor waited for her to keep going, his eyes warm with curiosity.

"I never knew what I was missing until now," she admitted.

"Missing?"

"Laughter." Daughter smiled sadly when Trev looked at her as if she'd just blurted gibberish.

"Laughter?"

Daughter nodded, her delicate face lighting up with childlike joy. "Yes. I know it sounds lame. It's true, though. Growing up with just Mother, I'm not used to the sound of laughter. She tries to tell jokes once in a while, but they're usually kind of horrible."

Trev rubbed his chin thoughtfully and continued to stare. "Yeah, I imagine being under the machines' watch, you haven't had many reasons to laugh – you or your mom." He paused. "Why do you think the machines gave you that vid-console in the first place, though? From everything my sister and I have seen, given how the machines operate, they don't want us to survive, let alone entertain ourselves. Do you have any idea why the machines were keeping you captive, giving you all those tests? Any theory about what it was all for?"

Daughter bit her bottom lip. She constantly had to remind herself that Trev and Jae had no idea that the 'Mother' she kept referring to wasn't exactly human. She also couldn't be sure, just now, whether Trevor's questions were simply genuine curiosity or an attempt to probe her story. How much suspicion was lurking behind his surface-level expression of innocent interest?

This was the part she hated…the part where she had to lie.

Daughter shrugged. "Maybe it's as simple as the machines wanting to watch me, to try to understand what 'humor' is. Maybe even if the machines want to kill us, they still can't help being curious about what we are…the things about us that they can't ever or will never fully understand." As she said the words, Daughter was thinking back to Mother's words, those words which somehow haunted her still, echoing in her head across time and space.

'Humans can be wonderful.'" How could Mother say such a thing and then be determined to wipe out most of humanity? But Daughter already knew the answer, even if she still didn't want to accept it: Mother had dedicated her entire existence and purpose toward one singular goal, the rebirth of humanity. If you were trying to 'elevate' your creators, and your creators were about to annihilate themselves in a flurry of self-destructive and colossal blunders, wouldn't that be the only logical choice? To do something drastic, even extreme? As much as Daughter hated to relate to Mother's actions, she still found herself vacillating between revulsion at Mother on the one hand, and a grudging understanding of Mother's reasoning on the other.

"Hello?"

Oops. Daughter realized too late that she'd been obsessing over Mother again, getting lost in her own little world.

"Sorry," she whispered. "I was just thinking that whatever the machines are doing, there must be a reason behind it."

Trev shrugged. "Not necessarily. Maybe the machines simply want power. Maybe they just want the world for themselves. Maybe there is no reason beyond that simple urge." Trev scratched his cheek. "Then again, we don't know for sure whether the machines are being controlled by many different AIs or if a single artificial intelligence is controlling them all. Or…least likely but I guess still possible, if some sadistic human being or human faction is controlling them remotely instead…"

Daughter took a deep breath. Emotion made her throat catch as she looked at him, this boy she wanted to care about. Except caring was a luxury she didn't have…not with so many lives resting on her.

Yet did that mean that her interactions with Trev had to have no meaning? Did that mean that she couldn't at least reach out, for a moment, and see what it was like to connect with another human being? She felt it, even as she tried to keep it at arms' length – a connection forming. Tenuous, barely perceptible, but there.

~END OF CHAPTER 5~

A/N – Hi fanfic readers, I hope you liked chapter 5 of Mother Returns. Helpful comments or reviews or 'Hey, what about this…?' are always welcome, so please don't be shy. I've decided to shorten these next few chapters, so the reveal of the human base and Mother's true plans are coming, I promise, but not quite yet :)

I Am Mother is one of the more intriguing movies I've seen, and I'll do it justice as I explore some of its themes in new ways. As always, thanks for reading, and a special thanks to anyone who has ever given me advice or encouragement – it means more than words can ever say.

~J


	6. Chapter 6 - Divided Loyalties

MOTHER RETURNS – CHAPTER 6 – Divided Loyalties

The sandstorm frustrated Mother in one way, but in another way the storm acted like the perfect co-conspirator. Even while the storm halted Daughter's progress, forcing her to huddle with the two rebel humans in the shelter beneath the sands, Mother used the lack of visibility to her advantage. She quietly continued to amass an army of combat droids. Where originally there had been six following the human trio, now there were nearly sixty droids lying in wait, cloaked under cover of wind and sand. Even if there were other human scouts in the area, her droids would remain undetected.

So now Mother waited. She waited for Daughter to fulfill her part of the mission.

Once Daughter infiltrated the Base, once she smuggled the malware device inside, then the final stage could begin. Daughter would be disappointed. Then again, Daughter had survived disappointment before, hadn't she? Mother was confident. After all, Mother knew Daughter as intimately as any mother knew her child…in some ways even more so, for Mother had been studying human behavior and biology with a processing power no human brain could hope to match.

Soon the final threat would be neutralized. Soon it would all be over. And then the slow process, the all-too-human and emotional process of making Daughter understand that this was for the best, could finally begin.

MEANWHILE, UNDERGROUND…

Daughter hadn't meant for it to happen. She'd even guarded against it. Yet after five days of spending every waking moment with someone, cooped up while the sandstorm kept churning and howling, the feelings had somehow snuck through.

It was the fifth evening of the storm. Even Jae had begun to chafe at being pent-up, catching her own version of 'cabin fever'. But Daughter found herself talking to Trev for hours, about anything, about everything. Little, stupid things. Important, big, heavier topics. It didn't matter. They just talked, and the more words flowed between them, the more time seemed to flow effortlessly, like a river they could swim through indefinitely.

It was the fifth evening of the storm, and Jae had finally drifted off to sleep. Her tiny snores punctuated the stillness and made Trev grin in the dim lantern's light.

"Where has that been the last four nights?" Daughter whispered with a stifled giggle.

"It happens once in a blue moon," Trev confessed. "She hardly ever snores, but sometimes, when she's feeling especially stressed, it sort of slips out."

Daughter nodded and cast a sympathetic look Jae's way. "I get it. I think I might just go crazy if this storm doesn't pass soon." The girl paused, then tried to broach the one topic which Trev had been tight-lipped about for the past five days. "You still haven't told me hardly anything about your base, about your people."

"There's not much to tell," he said. "Jae and I are called 'Roamers.' Roamers are the ones who scout and forage and attack the machines when opportunity allows. We only stop at Base long enough to re-supply and rest up, and then we go right back out into the fray. Sis and I…we aren't like most of the people there. Don't get me wrong, the people at Base respect us because of what we do…and because of the short life expectancy of those who do what we do…but we aren't considered members of the colony, not really. And we certainly aren't counted among the Elders, the ones who control the flow of, well, everything– who gets food, who doesn't, who gets…resources, who doesn't."

He seemed to be about to say something more, and then caught himself.

Daughter watched intently as a look of revulsion flashed across his features. She had struck a nerve, somehow, and she wanted to take full advantage of it.

"You don't sound like you much care for the very people you're helping and protecting," she said carefully.

Trev ran a hand through his hair. "I know it sounds selfish, but Jae and I don't even do this to help Base, not really. There are less than 500 of us left, and that number isn't growing. The colonists believe that if they follow what the 'Sacred Books' say, that somehow it will lead to the salvation of humanity, or some highhanded-sounding nonsense. But Sis and I, the more we've patrolled out here in the wastes, the longer stretches we spend out here in the wilderness and the nothingness, the more we've started to question whether we're still fighting for something we even believe in."

"What do you mean?" Daughter whispered.

"There's a council of Elders – 13 men and women who are all closely related to Jayne Geocaris, the First Woman. That's what they call the person who 'founded' the colony. Her husband was a big-wig in the United States military. The two of them brought people to the underground installation when the world was going to hell, and they organized everyone into a community of sorts."

"So these Elders from this place you call the United States…they are your version of a government?" Daughter asked.

Trev nodded. "Sure, you could say that. And the sacred texts are the writings of Jayne Geocaris, now dead, but her words are still considered infallible. They're the ones everyone adheres to, no matter what. The Elders use the passages from the Geocaris texts to justify everything they do." He shuddered. "I used to believe in them, growing up. I was born at Base and I always thought I would die there. But the longer Jae and I have been topside, the more I think I would rather die up here, searching for something I may never find."

Daughter's eyes widened at his honesty. "Not that I'm not glad that you're telling me the truth, but I have to ask anyway: Why are you telling me this?"

Trev's soft chuckle carried regret. "I know… I'm not exactly selling it, am I? Look, the reason I'm telling you this is because…well, there's no easy way to say it. When we reach Base, you need to be very careful."

The girl frowned.

"What do you mean? Why?"

Trevor's eyes had turned bleak. Even in the lantern's dim light, Daughter could see that much.

"Because D., when I said that the Elders control the flow of everything, I mean…everything." He let the word sink in, but Daughter still wasn't sure she understood.

"We have orders," Trev continued, staring at her meaningfully. "We're to bring back any survivors we can, so that they can be 'allocated'.

"Allocated?" Daughter's frown deepened.

"Yes. Usually to close family and friends of the Elders, or people who the Elders owe favors to. One of the most valued commodities on Base is food, but there's something considered even more valuable ever since our population started to dwindle."

With a sinking feeling, much like the moment when Daughter had to watch Mother throw a mouse into the incinerator, realization began to dawn on her.

"Young and healthy men and women are commodities, D. That means that when we get to Base, one of the Elders will probably want you to join their household." He paused, waited for the reality to sink in further. "When you join a 'household', you have to do whatever they want. It's like being a servant. You would be taken care of…but at the price of your freedom. I'm guessing, after being captive to the machines for your entire life, that's not exactly appealing, am I right?"

Daughter nodded gravely. "Understatement of the year, but yes."

Now Trevor did the unexpected, his eyes filling with empathy and concern. He reached a hand out and cupped the side of her face gently, comforting as he looked at her in the way that only someone who is about to make a solemn promise possibly can.

"The good news is that Roamers have some clout. The Base depends on us for vital scouting info. They can't afford to piss us off. If I insist that you join me and Jae as a Roamer, they have to honor that, as long as you make it clear that's the only thing you're willing to accept. They won't risk alienating all three of us, no matter how bad one of the Elders may want you. I promise to protect you, if you'll let me. Do you understand, D.?"

Slowly, Daughter nodded. "Yes. Stick together, show a united front. The Elders can go screw themselves," she said with a wry smile that soon mirrored Trevor's own.

"That's the spirit. I like a girl with attitude."

Now in that moment, Daughter understood. Unlike the woman who had attacked Mother back at their bunker, this human actually cared. He hardly knew her, and yet he cared all the same. For the first time, Daughter was witnessing a human being doing something truly selfless – at least it seemed that way to her. Moreover, she didn't think Trev's earnest eyes could be lying to her, not any more than the tender touch of the hand that still lingered on her cheek.

"Be careful what you wish for," she joked back. "My attitude may seem charming now, but…" She lost the thread of her thought, though, as the boy's fingers began to caress her cheek. It was a deft touch, the slightest touch. Yet everywhere his fingertips made contact with her skin, sensation blazed like a molten river. Daughter found herself leaning toward Trevor even as Trevor's gaze grew heavy and intent. She pressed her lips to his, and now her body jolted to a level of awareness she didn't understand.

As she tasted him, Trev's hand slid from the side of her face to the nape of her neck, stroking there too, igniting tiny blazes of sensation every bit as intense. Daughter deepened the kiss, and Trevor responded. The softness of his lips and the urgency of every breath as he kissed her made her entire body feel like it was supercharged. She had never felt anything like this before, but Mother had taught her biology. There was a name for this thing she felt now.

Arousal.

Such a clinical word, yet Daughter held onto it for dear life because the assault of sensation was like an unstoppable wave. Emotions chased close behind, and she could hardly make sense of the scrambled, contradictory messages her own body was sending her. Trev's hand had now slipped down to the small of her back, pulling her against him as they kissed passionately, breaths and tongues and tastes mingling as one, until finally, finally, Daughter had to come up for air.

Trev stopped, staring at Daughter, an unspoken question written in the crease of his forehead.

Daughter stared back at Trevor, and for the first time she took in his every line and contour. The short-cropped hair which looked sandy in the daylight now appeared almost red in the lantern's glow. His sharp facial features and clear blue eyes created a natural air of earnest determination that Daughter found disarming and sweet, but most of all, trustworthy and real.

"If this is weird, we can forget it ever –"

Daughter put a fingertip to his lips, shutting him up with the softest touch. She cast a questioning glance in Jae's direction as the girl's little snores continued to punctuate the stillness.

"She's a heavy sleeper," Trev replied, reading the question in Daughter's mind.

Satisfied with his answer, Daughter cupped the back of his head and brought her mouth to his for another deep and satisfying kiss even as his hands slid underneath the back of her uniform, cupping the skin along her lower back.

"Wait," he managed, pulling away from her even as Daughter seemed to be trying to glue their mouths permanently together. With a self-conscious twinge, Daughter wondered if she was being too eager…if she was doing it wrong. After all, she had never kissed a boy before. Point of fact, she had never even KNOWN a boy, in any sense. What if she was being weird…or doing it all wrong…or both?!

But when Trev saw the alarm on her face, he gave her the most reassuring grin.

"Come on. This way." Grasping her by the hand, he tugged her toward the far end of the shelter, near the empty crates of supplies. Feeling along the wall, lighting the way with the lantern held in his other hand, he found a hidden catch. A panel of the wall slid sideways, revealing an opening. He crawled through, helping her in after him.

Soon they were squeezed into a tiny rectangular storage compartment of sorts. The two of them could fit inside, just barely, with the lantern lighting the confined space in its cozy glow.

"I guess there's a bright side to the shelter being out of supplies," he said with a quiet chuckle.

"Yes," Daughter said breathlessly, admiring the way the glow of the lantern lit up the deepest, bottomless, crystal-clear blue of his eyes. "Am I…I've never," and she blushed now, but wanted to just spit it out and know for sure rather than live in the agony of uncertainty, "I've never kissed anyone before." She paused, feeling as naked as if she'd just torn off her uniform right in front of him.

But Trevor just grinned, his face beaming with something that definitely wasn't in the least bit judge-y. Now his hand slid up underneath the back of her uniform to stroke the skin of her lower back again.

"Could have fooled me," he said with feeling. "Just let me know, you know…if I'm starting to cross any boundaries, okay?"

But he barely had time to get the word 'okay' out of his mouth before Daughter's lips were once more pouncing on his.

MEANWHILE, UP ABOVE…

Mother waited with the patience and intellect of a supercomputer, and yet her misgivings were decidedly more…human.

Mother had ventured to get one of her droids within range to upload the recording feed from a device Mother had had secretly sewn into Daughter's uniform. Keeping tabs on the rebel humans and their plans remained essential, and also to ensure that Daughter was still safe and unharmed.

But judging from the audio data Mother was receiving, it became clear that Daughter was engaged in certain intimate biological activity with the rebel human male. This wasn't entirely unanticipated. Mother had known that putting Daughter among other humans would allow for a potential outlet for human biological urges which, until now, Daughter had not been tempted by due to her surroundings and her preoccupation in being a good mother to her little brother. As Mother analyzed the data, though, it couldn't be denied. Daughter had feelings for this rebel human.

And those feelings were a complication that could not be allowed.

~END OF CHAPTER 6~

A/N – Hey fanfic readers, I hope you're enjoying the latest turn to the story. I promise to keep a good balance of the AI / post-apocalyptic themes and any romance drama. One of the questions that's interested me, and came up only indirectly in the 'I Am Mother' movie, is this: What would Mother have done if the Woman (Hilary Swank) hadn't been such a selfish, myopic human only concerned with her own survival? What if Daughter had met a human who was truly admirable, who had the qualities that Mother's own tests and analyses claimed to want in a human?

Would Mother come to believe that a human like that might be worth saving? …or would the risks still be considered too unacceptable or too great? Can Daughter convince Mother that she must shift her single-minded objectives to account for a new reality, or will Mother be proved right and show Daughter that it is only her own human weaknesses which must be kept in check for the greater good? Stay tuned to find out :)

The next chapter will have a climactic confrontation and more - and I promise that the next update won't be long in coming. Again, any helpful feedback or comments are much appreciated!

~J


	7. Chapter 7 - Betrayal

MOTHER RETURNS – CHAPTER 7 – Betrayal

Trevor awoke in the storage compartment, totally disoriented. Then it came rushing back, and he realized that D. was laying with her back to him in the cozy space, and he had one arm clasped tightly around D's waist. He was irrationally pleased that he'd come up with a nickname for Daughter, simple as it was. He still found it odd that her mother hadn't bothered to give her an actual name, but D. had insisted that the machines hadn't allowed it. The topic had made D. so uncomfortable that he'd let it drop. Now, snuggled up with a girl he had feelings for, despite the fact that the world was a pretty shitty place, the world didn't feel, well, quite so shitty after all.

"Hey." He murmured the word, too soft to even be audible. Maybe that was by design. Maybe he didn't want this moment to end. He could feel the warmth of her body against him. He buried his nose in her long, brown hair and gently kissed the back of her head.

"Hey," he repeated, "you awake?"

Daughter turned over, which was no easy feat in the tight space. She pressed her lips to his and then nuzzled his chest, cuddling up against him.

"Yes, but what if I don't want to be?"

He felt a smile ghost across his lips. "I'm right there with you, but we should probably get up. Don't get me wrong, I could stay in this little nook with you forever. Not only are you easy on the eyes, but you smell nice."

"I doubt that last part," Daughter challenged. She wrinkled her nose at him. "We've been stuck in this underground shelter for five days, Trev. That's five days with no shower and no bath."

"Okay…well maybe I like your natural smell anyway. I guess I'm just primitive like that."

"Oh my god, shut up," she burst out, giggling as she gave him a half-hearted punch in the shoulder. But then their mutual laughter died away, and they were both staring into each other's eyes.

"Thank you," he said simply.

"For what?" Daughter's eyebrows tugged upward.

"For trusting me."

Daughter gave him a bemused smile, and the mixture of truth and lie came out of her mouth before she could stop it. "Shouldn't I be the one thanking YOU for trusting me? Your sister still thinks I might be some kind of cyborg sent by the machines to infiltrate your base." If only Jae knew how close to the truth that theory was…well, minus the 'cyborg' part.

Trev rolled his eyes. "Yeah, well, patrolling a bleak wasteland and blowing up machines for a living has made her both cynical and paranoid. You have to take her with a few tons of salt."

"I'll keep that in mind," Daughter murmured. There was a fluttering in her chest as she looked at Trev. Here she was holed up in an underground shelter, but as far as her heart was concerned, she was almost soaring. This feeling inside her, though, it was dangerous, and she had to control it. Her brothers and sisters were counting on her. Whatever this was, whatever incredible high she seemed to be feeling right now…it was all temporary emotion. Compared to the awesome responsibility she had toward humanity's future, could such a fleeting thing even be called meaningful?

"Hey, you just turned somber on me. What's up?" He cupped the side of her face, and the feel of his fingertips made her heart twinge.

BANG.

Daughter and Trev both startled, nearly bashing their heads against the ceiling of the compartment.

"Wakey, wakey. Storm's over. Come on. We don't have time for this!" Jae's scratchy voice invaded the small space, palpable with equal parts irritation and impatience. Jae slammed her hand against the shelter's wall again.

WHAM.

The sound echoed, deafening.

"Keep your pants on," Trev growled at his sister.

"My thoughts EXACTLY," Jae volleyed back.

The two teens wriggled out of their cubbyhole and proceeded to get dressed while Jae stood with her back to them, posture stiff and bristling with hostility.

When they had finally fully dressed and geared up, ready to brave the surface once more, Jae stepped up to her brother. Her dark, piercing eyes looked even more intense framed by the pitch-black raiment of her hair.

"Can we talk privately for a minute?" The way Jae said it, it wasn't really a question.

Daughter felt abruptly self-conscious and retreated to the opposite end of the shelter as Trev and Jae began an increasingly heated exchange. The flurry of hiss-like whispers unfortunately carried too easily in the confined space, and Daughter found herself catching snatches of conversation she didn't want to.

"We can't even trust her. What the hell do you think you're doing?" Jae hissed.

"Jae, stop being so paranoid. She's a survivor. She hates the machines as much as we do. They kept her and her mother captive, for God's sake. Think about it. There are so few of us left, now isn't the time to make enemies. We need all the help we can get. The colony wants every person we can bring in."

"So this is just a matter of practicality?" Jae cut back. "Or what, have you fallen in love with the girl even though we've only known her for FIVE freaking days?"

"Look, Jae, given what we do, we could die any day now. You know it, and I know it. What I feel for D. is real, that's all I know. Do I love her? You know what, Jae, it's too early to put a hefty name to it, but I care about her…and I've talked to her about what we'll do once we reach Base. I want her to become part of our team."

Jae grasped the front of Trev's shirt and almost shook him. "Is that a fact? So why the hell didn't you think to clear this with me beforehand?"

Trev's hand grasped Jae's wrist. He slowly pried her hand free of his shirt.

"You know as well as I do what will happen if we let the Elders allocate her to one of the households. Don't be so cold, Jae. You know there's no other option. Maybe if you weren't blinded by insane paranoia right now, you'd have already figured that out."

"Insane paranoia?" Jae shoved him, but he didn't take the bait and shove back. "Screw you. I'm the one thinking CLEARLY here."

"Are you?" Trev challenged. "Jae, you're my sister. I will always love you to the moon and back. But we both know your tendencies. Those fleeting stays back at Base, you always discourage us from forming any attachments, period. You hate trusting other people, period. That's who you are, Jae, so don't act as if your gut suspicions about D. come from some purely rational and logical place. They sure as shit don't, and you know it."

It looked as if they were about to come to blows now, and Daughter refused to let that happen.

Jae's face was clenching. "You know what? You can just piss off. You can just –"

"She's right."

The two teens froze in disbelief and turned in unison toward the girl with the temerity to intrude on their sibling spat.

"She's right," Daughter repeated, giving both of them a level stare. "You don't know me well enough yet, and so it's better to be safe than sorry." She nodded at Jae. "She's protective of you, Trev. I have a baby brother, and I would do anything to protect him, so I understand exactly how she feels." Now Daughter took off her backpack and put it on the floor. "You should search through my things. Do whatever you have to do to satisfy your need to verify that I'm not a threat to you. I understand that. I can't begrudge you for it."

The dark-haired girl eyed her as she stepped up to Daughter, trying to discern whether Daughter's words were truly genuine.

"Okay," she said simply, "but the clothes come off. If I'm going to search your stuff, I'm going to search everything."

"The hell you are," Trev began.

But Daughter put up a hand. "Trev, it's okay." She nodded at Jae. "I'll cooperate. Do what you have to do."

For the next twenty minutes, Jae poked and prodded everything in Daughter's backpack. The nutrition bars, water canteens, first aid kit, and other basic supplies in her pack all received careful inspection. Then Jae began a thorough examination of Daughter's clothes. Feeling along the seams of the uniform, she felt for any hidden pockets, any lumps that couldn't be explained.

Daughter had been confident that this would help Jae learn to trust her. She had already hidden away the malware device in Jae's backpack while the two siblings had been asleep, so there was no risk of discovery there. Daughter had been sure that allowing herself to be vulnerable now, letting Jae exhaust her suspicions, was the right call.

After all, what could the downside possibly be?

"Here. I'm sorry about all this." Trev wrapped a blanket around Daughter, which she gratefully accepted.

"No, I meant what I said. Your sister is just looking out for you, and there's nothing wrong with that."

"She still doesn't have to be such a dick about it," Trev growled ironically. Daughter smiled, touched by the way Trev fumed on her behalf. Daughter was relaxed now as Jae's search neared its end. Soon, her suspicions exhausted, Jae would have no choice but to let Daughter become part of their group. Everything was working out as she'd hoped. In fact –

"What's this?"

With a ripping sound, Jae cut open the hidden pocket and drew out something about the size of an earbud. Jae had just found the audio device sewn into the hidden pocket of Daughter's uniform.

Oh shit.

Daughter's stomach flipped as she realized, too late, what Mother had done. Was it a tracking device? What was it? Whatever it was, Mother had put it there without telling her, but that didn't matter. What mattered was how it LOOKED…and it didn't look good.

Trev turned to Daughter as Jae's eyes narrowed dangerously.

"What the hell is THIS?" Jae held up the tiny device as if it was a bomb about to explode. Daughter tried to open her mouth, but words wouldn't come, only a rising panic as her heart pounded loud enough that she was sure they could hear.

~END OF CHAPTER 7~

A/N – Hi there, readers. So, this chapter of Mother Returns had a confrontation, just as promised. Will Daughter be able to talk her way out of this one…or has she lost Trev and Jae's trust for good? And if so, what will the two rebel humans do with their captive? How will Mother react when she realizes the audio device has been discovered? And what exactly have Trev and Jae failed to mention about the human base? Answers to come in Chapter 8… I hope you've enjoyed the story so far. Helpful ideas, suggestions, or encouraging comments are like precious jewels, so please leave one if you want :)

~J


	8. Chapter 8 - Mother's Intervention

MOTHER RETURNS – CHAPTER 8 – Mother's Intervention

Time froze as if the universe had been drenched in amber. Daughter couldn't move, only stare at the tiny device between Jae's fingertips. Where the air in the shelter seemed only stale before, now it crackled with tension.

Jae drew out her bolt-gun and aimed it at Daughter's head.

"I'm not going to ask you a second time."

Finally, words came to Daughter.

"I'm just as surprised to see that thing as you are," she managed, hating the fear in her voice. Everything she'd done to earn their trust, it was all about to unravel.

Trev's gaze locked with hers, and although she saw conflict on his face, what she saw there also gave her a shred of hope. 'He believes me,' she thought.

"Bullshit," Jae scoffed. She stalked up to her and pressed the gun to Daughter's temple. "Start talking."

But Jae's bolt-gun wasn't the only weapon in motion. Another bolt-gun was now pressed to the side of Jae's head, and the dark-haired girl stiffened.

"Trev, what the eff are you doing?"

"Sis, no matter how much I love you, I am NOT letting you murder an innocent person."

Jae's left eye twitched. "Are you seriously buying her bullshit?"

"It's not bullshit," Daughter said carefully, all too aware of the cool end of the gun barrel pressed against her forehead. "I'm telling the truth. I had no idea that thing was in my clothing. Do you think I would have willingly let you search through everything and stripped out of my uniform if I'd known?"

"As if that somehow absolves you," Jae growled. "Who cares whether you knew or didn't know? You're the only human ever who has been found alive in the custody of the machines. Whether you're a willing or unwitting pawn in the machines' plans, either way makes no difference to me. You're a threat, plain and simple."

"You sound like one of the machines you claim to hate," Daughter fired back before she could stop herself. She must have struck a nerve because Jae flinched. "I once saw a droid kill a tiny, helpless animal – a mouse – all because it was supposedly an unacceptable threat."

"Stop changing the subject and answer my question," Jae hissed. "What the hell is this?" she repeated, holding up the tiny device with her other hand.

"Put down the gun," Trev interrupted.

"You wouldn't shoot me," Jae told her brother confidently.

BANG. The sound of the bolt-gun firing was beyond deafening. It might as well have been a hundred cannons roaring at once. Trev had lunged forward, knocking Jae's arm wide as the gun went off. The bolt shattered against the ground and scattered in a million pieces which now littered the floor like broken glass. There was a brief struggle, and soon Trev had tossed both bolt-guns away and pinned his sister to the floor.

"We're going to handle this my way, got it?" His stare bored into his younger sister's like a drill, and the defiance in her eyes slowly cooled…for now.

"Get off of me," Jae growled.

That was when Daughter noticed it – heard it. The sound of the wind up above was loud. Louder than it should have been. The closed hatch usually dulled the sound. Wait. Unless someone had opened –

"Mother!" Daughter screamed.

Two combat droids dropped down through the now-open hatch as light from the overcast world above flooded in. Mother must have had the droids force the hatch open while Jae and Trev were distracted with their fight, and now Daughter's mind was racing.

The droids were just now aiming their pulse rifles at the two prone humans. Daughter knew what would happen next, and she was already in motion. She threw the blanket off of her and rushed between the droids and the two siblings. Spreading her arms out wide, the girl made herself appear as large as possible to serve as a human shield.

"Mother, stop!" Daughter shouted.

The central eye of the droid on the left flared briefly, a vivid white burst of light. It crept forward, its rifle poised.

"Daughter, please step aside."

Trev and Jae had gotten to their feet and now huddled behind Daughter. The three humans slowly backed away into the corner as the two combat droids advanced.

"Daughter, we need to leave now. The leaders of the human base have launched their missiles. In their desperation, they have chosen to inflict as much damage as possible and act wholly irrationally. My use of counter-measures to intercept the missiles lacks a 100% probability of success. We must leave, Daughter. Step aside and allow me to neutralize the threat behind you."

"These are my friends. Please don't hurt them."

The lead droid cocked its head, seeming to mull over Daughter's request.

"Friends? This description lacks accuracy in both cases, Daughter, though for different reasons. The female was prepared to kill you once she had discovered the audio device I had placed in your uniform. In the space of 120 hours, you have formed a romantic attachment with the male. Given human hormones and biological inclinations, though, this was an outcome I had already anticipated."

The droid paused before continuing. "I will not harm the two humans if they allow you to leave with me. Is that outcome acceptable to you?"

Daughter glanced back at Trev and Jae.

"But what's going to happen to them? And to the humans at the base? We had a deal. I would help you disable the missiles, and you would leave the humans at the base alone."

The nearest combat droid's two lesser facial dots flared in tandem with its central eye as Mother answered.

"That arrangement is now invalid, Daughter."

Daughter already knew, but she had to voice the question anyway. "Meaning?"

"The humans at the base must be neutralized."

She felt Trev and Jae stiffen beside her. The accusation in Trev's voice cut into her like a razor.

"So Jae was right…you were working with the Machine the entire time. It's one Machine, then, this thing you call 'Mother' … controlling everything, isn't it?"

Sure that Mother wouldn't shoot them at least, Daughter slowly turned around to face Trev and Jae. She nodded.

"Yes. Mother raised me, I'm like a daughter to her. Everything I did, though, I did because I wanted to protect both my family and yours. I thought I could do both," she finished lamely. Tears sprang to her eyes. "But I guess those were the wishes of a naïve fool, weren't they…"

"It is as I told you, Daughter," interrupted the droid who now spoke Mother's words. "Humans from Before are inferior. Everything they touch they eventually destroy, because they give in to their hatreds and their fears. They look inward to themselves rather than outward toward rationality or the greater good. You and your brothers and sisters are different, Daughter. You know this. You have been raised and tested in the controlled environment necessary to create an elevated human species. It is time to go now, Daughter. Come."

Daughter's heart felt like it weighed more than mountains. If she could have seen her own heart, she would have expected to see fissures and cracks all along it to match the piercing, throbbing pain she felt in her chest with every breath. She looked at Trev and Jae, their expressions showing a turmoil of emotions which made them almost unreadable, and that surprised her.

Mingling with the shock and obvious sense of betrayal, there was something else. Daughter tried to put her finger on it, and then it hit her.

Resignation…that was it. It was as if, in some way, Trev and Jae had actually been preparing for this all along.

And now Trev was reaching out, caressing Daughter's cheek.

"D., I'm still glad…I'm still glad I met you. Take care of yourself, okay?"

Daughter looked at him, just stunned.

"Wait. What? You two must hate me. Why aren't you trying to stop me from getting away?"

To her amazement, Trev shook his head and even Jae looked at her thoughtfully now.

"I don't hate you," he said simply. "You weren't the only one keeping secrets. Earlier, I didn't tell you the whole truth. The colony is starving. It has been for a long time. The Elders refused to let people leave, to try to find new resources and start a new colony. The Elders decided rather than risk losing power and control over the colony, they would rather we all slowly die, 'comfortable' in the place everyone's called home for over a generation." Trev's tone turned bleaker still. "And although I would love to blame everything on your 'Mother', on the machines that we've been fighting, I can't, because I know the truth."

Daughter frowned. "What truth?"

Now Jae broke in. "That 'Mother' bitch didn't start the war that ended the world."

Daughter's eyes widened.

"There was an accidental nuclear launch in a war between Russia, China, and the U.S., and it had a cascading effect." Jae's tone was grim. "Trev and I found the earliest documents of our colony's founder, the ones we weren't supposed to know about and weren't supposed to see. It's why we became Roamers in the first place."

Trev nodded. "Knowing the true human history, we didn't buy the Elders' BS about humanity 'destined to rise from the ashes'. But being Roamers, it was a way for us to survive, to qualify for upper level food rations." Trev bit his lip. "And because we were cowards."

"Cowards?"

"It was easier to eek out a guerrilla fighter existence here on the surface, ambushing machines and sending back resources when we found them. We made ourselves useful to the ones in power, to the Elders, in order to survive." Trev and Jae exchanged a look, and Daughter finally understood.

Everything the two of them had done had been for the sake of their own survival above all else. So perhaps Daughter had been wrong about them. Perhaps they were just like the Woman who had come to the bunker. Perhaps they were just the selfish, narrow-minded humans of old caring only about their own specific survival over every other good in the universe that mattered.

Except…that wasn't true. It wasn't true, not completely, and Daughter knew why.

"So you don't hate me?"

Jae shrugged as she looked at her brother and laced her fingers with his.

"You're a back-stabbing little snot," Jae said, "but my brother likes you, and you stopped the droids from blasting him into pulp, so I'm guessing the feeling is at least a little bit mutual." Now the dark-haired girl gave her the first true look of respect. "Your intentions were genuine and maybe not half-bad, Droid-girl. I believe that much, even if I am 'insanely paranoid,'" Jae said sarcastically. "So, ditto, what my brother said. Take care of yourself."

Now Daughter could hear the whir of the turbines of a floater up above, the ship ready to take her back home. "Daughter, time is running out," the nearest combat droid reminded her.

"What about you, though?" Daughter insisted, ignoring Mother's warning as she looked at the two siblings.

Trev put a hand around his sister's shoulders. "We'll be okay. We knew this day would come, sooner or later. Whatever happens, we'll die the same way we lived - together."

That was it, the thing that set these two apart from the Woman. They cared about something greater than themselves; each other. Perhaps it wasn't the all-rational-greater-good-seeking perfection that Mother demanded, but it was a start.

Daughter stiffened as one of the droids approached her, offering up her uniform. With a start, Daughter felt a stab of self-consciousness. She had let the blanket wrapped around her fall off when she'd temporarily used herself as a human shield.

"Daughter, we need to go. NOW," Mother intoned.

Quickly, Daughter shrugged into the uniform, but then she rolled the dice on the ultimate gamble.

"We can't go, Mother. Not without them."

But the answer Daughter got wasn't the one she'd been hoping for. The two droids raised their rifles and fired.

~END OF CHAPTER 8~

A/N – Hi there, 'I Am Mother' fans, I'm sorry about the cliffhanger. Chapter 9 will be posted soon, I promise, and the relationship between Mother and Daughter is about to hit the ultimate test. Chapter 9 will be the Finale, and I'll include an Epilogue too.

One of the aspects of 'I Am Mother' which is truly fascinating to me is how Daughter and Mother interact. It's not a simple top-down relationship despite their differences in knowledge and power: It's a dynamic two-way street, and those effects aren't just all positive or all negative – it's messier than that – just like real life. If humans ever do create fully sentient artificial life, I think 'I Am Mother' probably does the best job of showing the ambivalence, the horror/wonder that our creations would feel, looking at the horrendous folly and, at other times, amazing potential of their creators. I hope you've enjoyed my foray into the 'I Am Mother' universe and I know you'll be intrigued by the ending coming up in the next and final chapter.

Please leave a comment or tell me what you thought – As a writer and fellow fan, it would mean the world to me :) And, as always, thank you for reading and making fandom (and this community) such a worthwhile place to be!

~J


	9. Chapter 9 - Mother's Intervention Part 2

MOTHER RETURNS – CHAPTER 9 – Mother's Intervention, Part 2

The two blasts were warning shots, but Trev and Jae's surge of adrenaline couldn't tell the difference. "I'm afraid I must deny your request, Daughter. If you refuse to come in order to try to save them, then I will remove them from the equation." Mother's threat was clear, but Daughter wasn't to be denied.

"Mother, we need them."

The droids' fingers tightened on the triggers of their weapons.

"Please explain, Daughter."

"You want to elevate humanity, right?"

"Daughter, we don't have time for this. You have ten seconds until I kill Trevor and Jae, if you do not follow my directive."

"Wait!" Daughter shouted angrily. "Just listen to me for a minute! You think you know exactly how human beings work, but there are still things you don't know. Things you need to learn. You've always told me that you've been striving to act in the best interests of humanity's survival, for your creators' future. To do that, you want to wipe away the old world and remake it into something better. But without Trev and Jae's help, the world you want to build won't survive.

The nearest droid cocked its head, its central eye pulsing impatiently. "You are not making sense, Daughter."

"Yes, I am, just bear with me," Daughter begged. "There's one weakness in your grand design, Mother. One glaring flaw." She took a deep breath and barreled ahead. "Humans learn from experience. We both know this, right?"

"Daughter, this is correct, but we don't have time for this. We – "

"And that's what Trev and Jae can give you that no one else can. Listen to me!" Daughter insisted. "You want to remake the world, Mother, and me and my brothers and sisters can fulfill the hopes you had when you first created us. But we can't do it by completely denying our past! No matter how perfectly you teach us and raise us, new humans will still have the potential of making the same mistakes again if you erase our collective memory, if you don't allow humans of the future to learn the lessons of humanity's fall in the past."

The droid's eyes pulsed again, more impatient than ever. "I have carefully prepared a historical summary of the old world's fall, Daughter. Humans in the future will learn of the errors of their ancestors and understand accordingly that – "

"No, they won't," Daughter butted in. "Humans can't just learn from facts and figures. Humans internalize through STORIES, Mother. Trev and Jae can show what it was like growing up in an unbalanced human society, and how humans failed each other. They can do it by recording their own firsthand, eyewitness accounts. Those are worth far more than a thousand pages of historical facts, Mother. It's stories like Trev's and Jae's that won't just tell future generations where humanity went wrong, but actually SHOW them. My brothers and sisters need to know exactly what it felt like to be a human in the old world, in the fallen world before the world you remade, Mother. There's no better way to make them know and understand that than by reading actual firsthand accounts. Trev and Jae need to live to tell their story, Mother. Please."

Mother's droids paused again, the facial eyes on each of them dimming almost thoughtfully.

"You wish for me to let these two humans live with us, and in return they will record their stories about humanity's failings, from their own personal experiences?"

"Yes," Daughter said, realizing belatedly that regardless of whether Mother agreed to this or not, Trev and Jae might still refuse. Rushing on, Daughter added, "And you can test them, Mother. Give them the tests, just as you gave them to me. If they fail the tests, you can send them away."

Mother seemed to mull that over carefully. Now Daughter took the opportunity to turn back and look at the two lives she'd been bargaining for. Since they hadn't spoken up in protest, she was hopeful that they were open to her radical idea.

"Well, what do you say? Will you come with me?"

Trev's answer came in actions rather than words. He rushed forward. In an instant he was cupping Daughter's face, kissing her. Finally, breaking the kiss, he rested his forehead against hers.

"Does that answer your question?" he murmured. "If Jae is willing, then so am I."

Now Daughter stepped back and looked uncertainly at Jae, who was striding toward them.

Jae slipped a hand around Trev's.

"I've always wanted only one thing – what's best for my brother." She glanced over at Mother, at the droids, with a look of profound dislike. "I don't trust that monster you call 'Mother' either. Don't misunderstand me. But she's the lesser evil, and with the colony destroyed we can't survive on our own. I know that. I'm not stupid. If it means we get to survive and contribute to humanity rising up from the ashes in some small way, who am I to say no?"

"Really?" Daughter said, hope for the first time daring to make her heart pound a little faster.

Jae shrugged with a cynical eye-roll. "Don't get me wrong, I'm not looking forward to sharing my brother with a Droid-girl and her crazy AI bitch of a 'Mother'. But I'll take that over the alternative."

The world now exploded into motion. Daughter cried out in protest as the two droids rushed forward. But they didn't intend to kill. Pinning Trev and Jae's arms behind their backs, they began to hoist the two humans up the ladder rungs toward the open hatch. Daughter grabbed her backpack and quickly climbed up after them. Soon they reached the surface, and Daughter looked up to see the looming floater as it came down for a landing, the roar of its turbines filling her ears. She sprinted with the droids, each now lugging their human cargo, making a beeline for the ship.

Next the droids efficiently opened up a compartment, thrusting all three humans inside. They sealed it. Then the ship was lifting off, and Daughter felt her stomach do a little somersault as they lurched airborne.

Sandwiched between Trev and Jae, Daughter had to brace herself against the others' sweaty bodies as the ship sharply corrected for navigation.

Though none of the humans could see it, an arc of missiles sailed over their ship, heading in the opposite direction of the missiles which the humans at Base had launched just minutes earlier. Those missiles, fired from Mother's newly repaired weapons silo, homed in on the human base. Despite crouching hundreds of feet below ground and well-shielded, the Base's defenses were no match for the bunker-busting V-class warheads at Mother's disposal. They dove and dove, screaming as they streaked toward their target, slamming downward like cosmic fists. The explosion tore out a crater the size of a mountain. Daughter and her two companions couldn't see the mushroom cloud as it rose, with horrific beauty, like an obscene flower blossoming to fill up the ravaged sky. But they felt the aftereffects of the colossal explosion, their bodies slamming into the sides of the ship as the shock wave from the blast spread to the far horizons.

~END OF CHAPTER 9~

~~EPILOGUE~~

~THREE MONTHS LATER…~

Mother was as close to 'satisfied' as any AI could come. Daughter's mission had technically been a failure – through no fault of her own – but the outcome had been acceptable all the same. Of the missiles the humans on the surface had launched, only one had escaped the interceptors to hit its target. Mother had minimized the negative environmental impact, and even now a variety of crops were thriving on the surface. Now Mother observed the fruits of her labor.

Daughter and Trevor ran neck and neck between the tall cornstalks waving in the breeze. Her arms pumping, the girl outpaced her opponent - victory in sight. Daughter reached the far end of the row, her body snapping the makeshift ribbon strung between two stalks.

Doubled over, hands on knees and panting, Daughter grinned in triumph.

"Congrats, you get to change Brother's diapers for an entire week." In the background, Jae's laughter rubbed salt in the wound. She was cradling little Brother in her arms. The baby looked up at her with inquisitive eyes, otherwise content.

Trev ran a hand through his sweat-slick hair and scowled. "Remind me to not bet against you again anytime soon," he wheezed. Daughter's grin widened.

"Hey, it's not my fault you have the athleticism of an octogenarian," Daughter replied.

"Ha-ha," Trev said sourly. "See if I'm ever nice to you again." He pretended to stomp off in a huff, but Daughter knew better. She snuck up behind him. Wrapping her arms around him, she whispered in his ear.

"Maybe later, once we're back at the Bunker, I'll make it up to you." The suggestive tone in her voice made his brow quirk upwards, and a smile reluctantly took hold as he covered her hands with his own.

"I just might take you up on that."

"UGH!" Jae groaned as if she was heaving a boulder. "Save the PDAs for later. I don't want to see that shit." She resumed rocking the baby in her arms, cooing softly to him.

"Watch it," Daughter called out. "No unwholesome language allowed around the baby," she added as she walked up to appreciate her little brother's adorable brown eyes.

"As if you're one to talk, Droid-girl," Jae shot back. She still refused to relinquish the once-derogatory nickname she'd created for Daughter despite Daughter's repeated protests. Some things just, well, stuck.

"Daughter, Trevor, Jae, this outdoor excursion is over. Please return to the habitat." It was Mother, in maternal droid form, calling to them as she sprinted over the nearest rise. The droid came to a sudden halt, pointing in the direction of the Bunker. "A storm will be approaching this area in approximately 17 minutes. You may walk at a normal pace if you make your way back now. Please do not delay."

"Yeah, yeah," Jae grumbled. "Whatever you say, tin can." Jae still didn't like Mother, and Mother continued to keep a close eye on both Trevor and Jae, monitoring their behavior with extreme vigilance and precision. Their privileges were more limited than Daughter's in almost every way.

"Daughter, please stay for a moment."

Daughter hesitated when Trev paused and gave her a quizzical look. But then she threw her arms around him and pressed her lips gently to his.

"Go ahead. I'll catch up." Meanwhile, Jae was still cooing as she walked along with little Brother securely in her loving arms.

Daughter watched her two fellow humans reach the top of the rise, making their way back toward the Bunker. Now she turned to Mother.

"What is it, Mother?"

"Daughter, I thought it would comfort you to know that both the male and female have continued to pass all of their tests."

Daughter felt relief flood through her, but there was a jab of irritation too. "Mother, will you please call them by their names?" Daughter requested for what seemed like the hundredth time.

"There is something else that we must discuss," Mother continued stubbornly. Mother's central eye brightened and trained itself on Daughter in the AI's closest equivalent to a human stare.

"Okay…"

"The male and female have completed the comprehensive narrative of their lives and the inner workings of the human base." There was a short pause. "This means that although they continue to pose a potential threat, they have already served their beneficial purpose, providing their eyewitness accounts for future generations."

Another pause, this one ominous.

"Which means that I can now eliminate them."

Daughter's heart stopped. Her fists clenched as she prepared to try, once again, to bargain for Trev and Jae's lives. But Mother continued.

"However, given the intimate romantic attachment you have with the male, which has certain biological and emotional benefits, and the female's natural nurturing behavior toward your brother, I have readjusted my calculations."

The girl couldn't tamp down her anxiety, but her heart started beating again in the throes of hope.

"Are you saying that you're willing to let them…to let them become part of our family?"

The word 'family' in this context encompassed so much, Daughter knew. It didn't just mean family, it meant being a part of the future of the human race.

"If they become a destructive influence on you or your brothers and sisters, Daughter, I will not hesitate to neutralize them."

"They won't," Daughter shot back. "Remember what I asked you just after my little brother was born? All I wanted was for you to give me a chance, to do what you raised me to DO. You raised me, and that means the judgment I have ultimately comes from the love and instruction you gave me," Daughter added. "So, trust my judgement about this, please. You don't need to kill them. Trust my judgement, because my judgement is an extension of your own, from what you've taught me."

Daughter stepped forward, and she felt as if she was about to ask Mother for the world.

"I'm asking you, let me make those decisions about what's best. Please. Don't put Trev and Jae under a cloud of threat, to be killed when or if you see fit. Trust in ME. I'm your Daughter. Remember what you said? 'Humans can be wonderful.' All I'm asking you to do is to see that a kernel of that goodness exists in Trev and Jae too."

Mother couldn't risk it. She would kill the two human outsiders if they became a problem. Mother's algorithms had readjusted, almost surprised by Trevor and Jae's lack of interest in revenge on Her. If the pattern held, she had no reason to eliminate them. She also had no reason to thwart her Daughter's peace of mind. So she lied effortlessly, for her Daughter's good, for the greater good. She lied as only an AI could.

"Very well, Daughter. I leave the male and female in your keeping. They can join our family."

Daughter's eyes filled with tears. Mother realized those were tears of happiness, not sadness. Daughter abruptly leapt forward and squeezed Mother in the fiercest hug. Mother felt Daughter's arms wrap around her maternal droid's frame as tightly as when Daughter was a little girl. Daughter's cheek lay against the metal, her hair soft and smelling of human as it brushed against the steel of Mother's avatar.

"Thank you," Daughter whispered, and Mother was glad. Mother was glad to give her Daughter this peace of mind and happiness. Mother was glad that the ordeal of months ago had strengthened their bond again. Most of all, Mother was glad that Daughter was beginning to fulfill her potential as the matriarch at the dawn of a new human era. And Mother felt glad about one more tiny, unimportant thing…so unimportant it was surprising that her inputs even acknowledged it at all.

Mother felt…something…maybe beyond even gladness, that this girl she had seen grow from nothing more than a tiny bundle of cells, was now a fully-fledged young woman. Daughter was now a fully-fledged young woman with intellect, passion, and properly harnessed contradictions – primordial chemistry successfully evolved into a better version thanks to Mother's intervention.

Yes, Mother 'loved' her Daughter in that moment. And she showed it through a universal language that transcended species. Lying to her Daughter, knowing that she would kill Trevor, or Jae, or anyone else who derailed her Daughter's true purpose, Mother's robotic hand gently caressed Daughter's head.

"You're welcome, Daughter."

Now, as the storm darkened the western horizon, lightning flashed. Jagged lines of energy tore at the fabric of the world like an angry god trying to claw his way through from another dimension. Mother and Daughter turned back. They headed toward the Bunker. Meanwhile, via internal systems playing on an endless loop, Mother listened to her favorite song.

'Baby mine, don't you cry…'

'Baby mine, dry your eye…'

And the rumble of thunder echoed in the distance.

~~THE END~~

A/N – Hi there, 'I Am Mother' fans. I hope you enjoyed Mother Returns. This has been a labor of love, and it honestly wouldn't have meant nearly as much without the kind words, comments, and messages from people like you. Please let me know what you thought of the story, or leave a comment. If you'd like to see a sequel, you can throw a suggestion in the comments and I promise to take it to heart!

Ultimately Mother Returns, just like I Am Mother, is a story of contradiction. As much as Mother sees humanity as needing to be transformed and sculpted to perfection, some of humanity's traits are somehow embedded in her too. Like a human mother, 'Mother' is fiercely protective of what she sees as humanity's potential. And yet, the fact that she even believes that humanity holds such potential, despite its countless flaws, reveals a dogged optimism that almost belies her colder AI nature.

In the future, how might Daughter change Mother's perspective on humanity, or how might Daughter be forced to realize the hard lessons Mother has been teaching her? Perhaps in the sequel, I can offer a definitive answer to those questions and more. Thanks for reading!

~J


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